It is difficult to escape plastic in our daily lives but with a little effort you can reduce your plastic footprint.

Currently, 50% of the plastic we use is used just once and then thrown away, and only 5% of produced plastic is recovered. Every year the amount of plastic thrown away can circle the Earth 4 times, and billions of pounds of plastic can be found in our oceans. You can easily reduce your plastic footprint by adopting any or all of these three simple actions in your daily life.

Use Reusable Water Bottles

Americans alone use about 50 billion plastic water bottles each year. Single-use plastic water bottles create an enormous amount of waste, both in terms of plastic usage and money. If you buy just three bottles of water a week at $1 each you’ll have spent over $150 on bottled water during the year. Owning just one plastic-free Meshbottle will save you money and help cut down on plastic waste.

Carry Your Bags

The production of plastic bags production is toxic to the air as it requires petroleum and often natural gas and chemicals. Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide which works out to over one million plastic bags used per minute. Many cities have put a ban on plastic bags but you can implement a personal ban by simply carrying reusable bags with you when you go shopping. Check out ChicoBag, BAGGU, and Eco-Bags for some great reusable bag options.

Say No To Plastic Straws

500 million plastic straws are used in the US every day. To put that into perspective, 500 million straws could fill over 127 school buses each day, or more than 46,400 school buses every year. Refusing single-use plastic straws at home and at restaurants is easy to do and does have an impact. Fortunately we have straw options that are not plastic or harmful to our health; good old paper straws have improved greatly over the years and you can also find reusable glass straws and plant-based material straws. Check out GlassDharma, Strawesome and Simply Straws for glass straw options.